• donio@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    When you have a goose that produces a reliable daily supply of golden eggs do you:

    1. keep collecting your daily egg
      or
    2. see if giving it a good kick or two gets you more eggs
    • Link@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Youtube most likely never made any money. Hosting these vast amounts of video is expensive. Google stopped telling us how much they money youtube made them lose. You would think they would start bragging when they could make a profit off of it.

      That being said, this still sucks of course.

      • naoseiquemsou@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Although they don’t profit directly from youtube, it’s a strategy they take to impede competition from arising and keeping their name as the main one. It’s the kind of strategy only multibillionaire companies can do, and, in my opinion, something that should be restricted, because it affects smaller businesses to the point of becoming inviable.

        • Zifnab25@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          More notably, its a strategy they can do when borrowing costs are functionally zero.

          A lot of this shit is just the consequence of Fed Rate Policy. No more cheap money means these loss leaders are actually being expected to generate profit, not to just act as clearing houses for propaganda.

    • Zifnab25@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      As YouTube increases the number and length of ads, the amount of traffic behind blockers rises accordingly.

      This is also just… a function of the evolving digital space. The consolidation of the internet ownership sphere and the modernized APIs/coding tools afford server-side content warehouses more and more power over what the end user receives.

      Because AWS owns all the fucking rack space, because ISP monopolies are the defining feature of western net access, and Microsoft force-feeds people their proprietary interfaces, we’re moving away from the point where clients control what they display and closer to the point where everything’s just a dumb-terminal for big business.

      We’re effectively backpeddling from Web 2.0 to Terrestrial TV.

  • nighty@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    They have really gone all out on the whole enshittification process during the past couple of years, haven’t they?

    • NotBadAndYou@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Just wait until they figure out how much more $$$$ they can make by putting all content behind microtransactions:

      Imagine a world where, instead of grappling with complex tokens and crypto jargon, you have a digital wallet connected to your Web browser. This wallet would automatically handle microtransactions as you browse and consume content, creating a seamless and simplified experience, reminiscent of exchanging tokens at a funfair or arcade

      This transition to the Great Paywall isn’t just about the monetization of content; it’s about balancing the scales and recognizing the value of content creators in the digital ecosystem. In the next chapter of the Web, users aren’t just passive consumers but active participants whose attention carries tangible value.

      • nighty@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Let’s not forget that, if we do go down the microtransaction hell of an internet path, we’d be screwing things up big-time for the coming generations…

  • manned_meatball@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    oh boy, I wish youtube kills itself like reddit is doing right now so decentralized alternatives can become widely adopted

    • pinwurm@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      YouTube is a bit of a different animal.

      YouTube allows creators to monetize content - so there’s a sense of shared success. Channels from Tom Scott or Captain Disillusion are amazing, because their production in part relies on that revenue model.

      YouTube also understands that without paying for popular content, you won’t get the consistent cavalcade of medium content from people that want to earn a living or notoriety through YouTube. And that include anything from videos of cats falling over, blogs about life in remote places, DIY home improvement or niche guitar technique lessons.

      Meanwhile on Reddit, if a user gets thousands of upvotes and a million page views for a short story they wrote exclusively for the platform, Reddit won’t pay them a cent. The very thought is laughable.

      The other thing to consider is that the technology just doesn’t exist for there to be a viable ‘federated’ YouTube. YouTube has 800 million videos - many in HD and many are hours long. That’s a big ask in terms of storage and maintenance - even several thousand videos.

      Video compression has a long way to go before that changes. For now, it makes sense for leave that storage to the companies with resources.

      Text, however… well, all of Wikipedia can fit on around 20 gigs - 60 million odd articles. And for the record, that can pretty much fit on an iPod from 2002.

      I do wish that YouTube wasn’t a monopoly. Twitch is the only thing that’s close, and it has it’s own special lane for live streaming. Back in the old days, there was some competition - including Google Video. But that went away when Google bought YouTube. I guess there’s Vimeo, but they’ve got a very different approach.

      I mean, the Justice Department is suing Google for monopolizing ad tech - and I think we could see antitrust laws used in the next few years to breakup YouTube. Maybe the successor companies would federate - like when Bell was broken up into what became Verizon and ATT - who now directly compete for customers.

      • @pinwurm @manned_meatball I wonder if if Nvidia Video Upscaling and similar tech could also help 480p videos turn HD. That could help bandwidth reduction but it isn’t a solution as much as a workaround.

        I think the day will come when YouTube caps uploads or stops them entirely. Maybe limiting user’s uploads for videos that don’t get high viewership. Eventually this model can’t go on forever, I can’t even comprehend how it’s profitable currently.

        • pinwurm@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          YouTube is very profitable.

          Targeted ad revenue is massive - and Google owns both the platform and ad delivery system (AdSense). As well, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV exist.

          YouTube Premium has 50 million subscribers.
          YouTube TV is great for live sports and has something like 6 million subscribers now (compared to Comcast who has around 15 million TV subscribers). It’s only going up. At $73/mo, that earns them $5.25 Billion a year in subscription fees alone.

          While they have high expenses, they’re rolling in money.

          As data compression gets better and hardware becomes cheaper - YouTube’s operating costs get cheaper… which means bigger paychecks for execs.

      • Link@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The other thing to consider is that the technology just doesn’t exist for there to be a viable ‘federated’ YouTube.

        Well, Peertube exists. But I agree it is very hard to get close to the amount of videos YouTube hosts without it becoming too expensive. But that is even true for companies like Google, which is why they are pushing these changes. It seems like people need to accept that a video platform must either show ads, make you subscribe, or receive substantial donations.

        I almost can’t believe Wikipedia is only 20GB btw. Does that include all the pictures on there?

        • PureTryOut@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Does that include all the pictures on there?

          It can’t. 60 million odd articles with pictures only taking 20GB? I doubt it. Just the text taking up so few space that I can believe.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I almost can’t believe Wikipedia is only 20GB btw. Does that include all the pictures on there?

          That’s English compressed text only, decompressed text is closer to 90GB

          • UsernameLost@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Which is still pretty low tbh, considering the massive amount of information on Wikipedia in English

    • burak@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Right there with you on that one. The biggest problem is video hosting is a pain in the rear, particularly at such a grand scale. Hopefully, video hosting platforms will go niche, thus reducing bandwidth costs for each platform and “YouTube” will be the whole federation.

    • RoqueNE@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Decentralized services also cost money to operate. Servers, bandwidth, developers. Where is the money for that supposed to come from?

      • manned_meatball@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        LBRY solves it by creating their token and rewarding peers for storing and serving the media. The same goes for most P2P solutions, there’s no entity that has to pay for the costs, all the network shares it. More users and peers mean higher resources, but the individual costs remain roughly the same.

  • dan@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Then I’m going to begin not fucking watching YouTube.

    • kadu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There is a federated version of YouTube…

      But storing video is a massive challenge, way harder than dealing with a Lemmy or Mastodon instance.

      • dan@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        My rational mind realises it’s such an expensive system to run that it’s reasonable for them to charge or show ads. The problem is they’ve been extremely aggressive with ads and pushing subscriptions, to the point where I’m pretty resentful of the idea. Plus they’ve neglected so many things (like allowing aggressive copyright predators and refusing to implement sensible human-based appeals processes) that they really should have dealt with and instead embraced an algorithm that I’m pretty sure is at least partially responsible for the radicalisation of large groups of people.

        I… don’t mind paying for shit. I just don’t want to give them money.

        Also: wow there’s federated video sharing? Bet that’s not cheap to run.

      • Banzai51@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        The federated version also breaks one of YouTube’s bigger strengths: Just browsing for something interesting.

    • Petri@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Damn straight - they can take my NewPipe from my cold dead hands :-)

    • hugz@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      The great thing about using free open-source software is the immunity from corporate shenanigans.

      • datendefekt@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Well, all the open-source Reddit clients are pretty drastically affected by Reddit’s shenanigans.

        • hugz@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          RedReader isn’t actually. Reddit granted them an exemption, partially because it’s FOSS

    • PureTryOut@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Newpipe or even better, LibreTube, for even more privacy (and included sponsorblock!).

    • Banzai51@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      VC cash is drying up, and other investors are getting leery of the Silicon Valley funding model. Investors are demanding a path to profitability soon or right now.

  • Landor Dragen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    YouTube is the only Google service I use on a regular basis. Happy to leave them behind if they continue with this type of behavior.

    It would be less convenient, but it is what it is and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s ads.

  • Rumblestiltskin@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    We did the Twitter to Mastodon migration. Now we are doing the Reddit to Lemmy/kbin migration. When are we doing the YouTube to Peertube migration?

  • waspentalive@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    As fill-in ads are a vector for computer viruses and other malware I for one will NOT be disabling my ad blocker unless YouTube is willing to provide a lifetime subscription to something like Life Lock and make me whole for anything lost to whatever malware arrives as a part of an ad.

    Where else can I watch sci-show, Linus-tech-tips, and all the other channels I subscribe to?

    • beatniak@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Just use newpipe. It’s youtube without the ads. Doesn’t have casting support, but it allows you to download the videos. You can also listen/download to the audio of videos, without fetching the video.

  • ram@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    You can watch any YouTube video on Invidious, Peertube is a federated alternative to Youtube, Odysee is a blockchain based Youtube alternative that kicks back to creators and users, and many creators use Nebula as a subscription platform that directly pays them.

    • Pechente@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Nebula is really good at this point. Almost everything I enjoy watching is one there now.

      Seems like one of the best options to support your favorite creators.

      • @ram @Pechente but there business model is suspicious. They introduced a lifetime membership, how would that cover their bandwidth costs for those users?
        Unless they’re trying to grow the platform fast and hope for a buy out. But then any prior promises would likely be changed/revoked.

  • LostCause@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    When will companies finally understand that some people won‘t watch ads no matter what tricks they employ. I‘d rather watch no video at all than a single ad. If that is their goal, fine.

    • SuperZutsuki@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      And the percentage of people using ad blocking has to be crazy low. I’ve never seen another person in public with ad blocking. Every time I happen to see someone watching youtube, there’s ads playing.

    • laxe@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      That’s likely their goal. At least some percentage of ad blocking users will disable the adblock and for those that won’t, they’ll save server costs.

      For corporations that care only about quarterly stock price this makes sense. They don’t care about the long term damage to the ecosystem (adblocking users still contribute in many ways).

  • pineapple@lemmy.pineapplemachine.com
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    1 year ago

    I actually do not understand the widespread hostility that people have toward this kind of thing. I watch a lot of content on YouTube, and I don’t want to see ads, so I pay for premium. I watch a lot of content on Twitch, and I don’t want to see ads, so I pay for turbo. Hosting a major video streaming website isn’t cheap. It’s not like these things are unreasonably priced. If you hate the ads so much, then why not pay for the service that the platform is offering you, and for the content that creators are providing on it? And if you don’t watch often enough for ad-free viewing to be worth a few bucks a month to you, then why get so worked up about having to sit through an ad every now and then?

    • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I can’t speak for everyone, but I block ads and don’t pay because I hate Google. In addition to their repeated violations of user privacy, they go out of their way to disable OS features unless you pay them. Like disabling background play or PiP with Safari on iOS. Those features use the same open standards as foreground web browsers, so it literally takes extra effort to break them. Effort that could instead be used to fix the numerous problems with their platform, which they don’t. I refuse to reward that behaviour.

      • oh_that_courtney@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        One of the reasons I’m willing to pay is because I want the creators I watch to get the revenue to make more videos. (Although, without knowing for sure, I’d bet they get more off sponsorships than they do out of subscriptions or inserted ads.)

    • beached@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I hate ads. They are annoying, and waste too much of my time, are irrelevant to me 90% of the time, and often can be malicious.

      I would like to watch videos on youtube, but I dont wish to watch videos on youtube if there are ads. Also, ads are not every now and again, they are 2 ads for every video without fail now. 2x 30s ads for a 5 minute video is as bad as cable, I ditched cable and replaced it with youtube.

    • LostCause@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I hate ads with a passion due to my experiences in the marketing industry and will go out of my way to never watch any. I also don’t want to pay for random internet content, especially not to companies on the stock market. (Though I do use Patreon a bit for some content creators)

      Can‘t explain it much more than that. If youtube locks me out due to that, so be it. I don‘t get worked up either, I simply state my opinion on it where I please and if I‘m not wanted I leave. That‘s about it.

      • pineapple@lemmy.pineapplemachine.com
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        1 year ago

        I simply hate ads with a passion due to my experiences in marketing and will go out of my way to never watch any. Can‘t explain it much more than that. If youtube locks me out due to that, so be it. I don‘t get worked up either, I simply state my opinion on it where I please and if I‘m not wanted I leave. That‘s about it.

        Why don’t you pay for YouTube premium? This removes all platform ads.

    • foxuin@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      And if you don’t watch often enough for ad-free viewing to be worth a few bucks a month to you, then why get so worked up about having to sit through an ad every now and then?

      There is an awkward gap where most services (not just YouTube) don’t offer reasonable pricing for consuming small amounts of content. So if you consume a lot of YouTube, the subscription price is justified. If you consume very little YouTube, you can probably suffer through some ads. But if you’re somewhere in the middle, there isn’t a great option.

      YouTube probably makes fractions of a cent off of ads on a single video it shows me, but I can’t pay fractions of a cent to watch one video.

      I’d consider this to actually be a pretty widespread problem across the internet, where it’s frustratingly difficult to buy small amounts of content for a reasonable price. It’s either the subscription or nothing for a ton of services.